Now we are Six

Newlands Horseshoe walk

Lake Windermere

First of all WiFi is NOT in most hotels/B&Bs and Internet is expensive, so blog posts may be infrequent, certainly not as often as in Turkey.

We flew British Airways from Istanbul to Manchester via London on Monday. As soon as we boarded the plane we felt very much in Britain – the pilot apologised for us leaving late but told us what an “absolutely sterling job” the crew had done to minimise the delay after the plane had arrived late to Istanbul. We sat next to one of the band members of Jethro Tull - they had been performing in Istanbul. Older readers may remember Jethro Tull; they were popular in the 70s.

Alison was waiting for us in Manchester. We collected our car (a Vauxhall Corsa, not as nice as the Renault in Turkey) and headed north, stopping in Lancaster for the night. Graeme managed to (yet again) forget to return the room key so we have to post it back. The days are long – it gets dark around 945. Leaves plenty of time for walking especially if we get lost!

Tuesday we drove to Windermere where we are staying for 2 days. We then drove 20 miles north to do a hard 6 hour walk called Newlands Horseshoe. The weather was clear, sun was even shining and the 1000m up and down was no problem. So it should have all been perfect – BUT as soon as we started rising the wind got stronger and at the top it must have been blowing at about 70kph at least. We were almost getting blown off our feet. The views were great though, especially down to Derwent Water next to Keswick and to the mountains like Helvellyn to the east. It was a great walk. Driving to the start meant driving for miles on tiny narrow roads only wide enough for one car. If a car comes from the other direction someone has to backup to the nearest lay-by and let the other car pass. Everywhere are dry stone walls (no mortar), public footpaths through farm land, little quaint villages, etc. It is all SO English.

Judy, John and Sue arrived Tuesday night so now we are six. Today (Wednesday) we took the bus to Hawkshead (maybe 10 miles – cost about $14!) and did a nice walk back, ending with a ferry trip across Lake Windermere. The 9km walk ended up being about 15 km after we went the totally wrong way to start and then didn't find the correct track until we meet some people with a proper Ordinance Survey map. Lots of locals telling us where to go, but none of them with the exact right instructions! We were using a description form the Walking Englishman web site – great walks but the maps and descriptions leave a lot to be desired.

With apologies to A A Milne:
Now we are six we're as clever as clever
I think we'll stay six for ever and ever - well at least until tomorrow when we meet Stephen in St Bees, and then we'll be seven.